Shut Up and Dig (Cigar Smoke 8-14-08)

I’m just sitting here at my desk trying to get over being ridiculed by my son-in-law for putting my cell phone number on my cell phone. Yes, I made a little label from my little label-maker and I put the phone number right there on the damn cell phone. What can I tell you, I’m a bad seed. (At least I don’t have my computer password pasted onto my computer like a lot of you clueless bad seed readers out there. Admit it. You do it.)

OK, let’s talk about energy and oil. Hey, don’t you dare run away. We’ve got to talk about this. Let’s be different. Let’s be adults.

I just cannot believe that we are in the predicament we are in with gas prices and other energy issues. Though the Republicans have had their share of dopey energy policies, I just have to lay most of the blame on the Democrats. For the past 40 years or so, Democrats have stopped almost every plan to drill for new oil and build much-needed new refineries and take advantage of nuclear power.

Of course, they mask this foot-dragging strategy with environmental red herrings. Whenever they talk about not drilling in ANWAR up in Alaska, I just want to hurl. Have you ever been to ANWAR? No, I know you haven’t. Well, I have. Well, to be honest, I haven’t been actually on the ground there. I’m not that stupid. But I have flown over it. And let me tell you, there is nothing there.

Unless you count snow and frozen tundra and ice and a few very cold-ass caribou as something, there is basically nothing at ANWAR. Hell, if you made this a national park, you wouldn’t get 1,000 visitors in 100 years. I am telling you you can fly for hours (yes, hours) around ANWAR in any direction and you will see nothing but frozen stuff. Alaska is a big damn place. It’s half as big as the whole US. We can use a couple thousand acres to get oil. And the caribou will probably nestle up to a new ANWAR pipeline like they do near the Alaskan Pipeline now to get a little warmth. Come on, I’m not saying we should tear out Old Faithful and drill in Yellowstone. But ANWAR? It’s a no-brainer.

And dammit, let’s build some new oil refineries. We haven’t built a new refinery for something like 30 years now. That’s literally crazy. I guess the Democrats and environmentalists just think we’re going to get all our energy from solar panels and windmills and riding bicycles. Give me a break. I’m not against those things. But they shouldn’t be the only things we do for energy. The next time you pay $4.89 for a gallon of gas, say thanks to your friendly neighborhood Democrat, and pedal off on your bike to go home to your windmill. Oh, did you just hear that? Listen. It’s the Arabs laughing at us.

And nuclear power plants. It is unbelievable that we haven’t built any new nuclear power plants for decades. The environmentalists have us so scared that there will be another Three Mile Island meltdown that we’re just paralyzed. Of course, that was horrible, but technology has improved. Hell, countries like France get most of their energy from nuclear power. And you would think that Democrats would follow in France’s esteemed footsteps because Democrats shove France in our face every other second when it comes to foreign policy or Bush hating. Democrats love France except when it comes to nuclear power. I’m just the opposite. I don’t care much for France, but I think these commie pinkos are dead-on right about using nuclear power.

Aren’t you all just getting a tad bit tired of hearing the Democrats whining about big oil companies? It’s just so bizarre to me. Democrats just ignore obvious economic realities like that little old supply and demand problem. Do they even know that China and India and Russia and Korea etc. etc. are using incredible amounts of oil, which increases the demand for oil, and what do you know, the prices go up. Wow. Who would have thunk it?

And do they know that big oil companies are made up of little people in the stock market? Sure, a lot of oil execs are getting rich, but most of the oil money is being made by little old ladies who have mutual funds with oil stocks in their portfolios. And schools and universities and unions all have substantial amounts of their investments in oil. Something like 60 percent of Americans have an interest in oil. Doesn’t that matter?

And did you hear that mental giant from Nevada, Harry Reid, a few weeks ago? He said that oil is making us sick. How does that little roach (sorry, I don’t mean to give roaches a bad name) come up with stuff like that? If it wasn’t just so god-awful damn lame stupid I would laugh.

Has good ole Harry thought about this? Oil and coal have probably been the biggest contributors to health and well-being in our lifetime. OK, maybe electricity is first. I’ll give you that. But big bad oil and dirty old coal have been huge. Without gas for our trucks we would not have been able to carry lumber to the entire country to build homes. We would not have been able to get food to everyone. We couldn’t have gotten clothes to people. We would not have been able to get medical supplies to hospitals. There are thousands of things we are better off for because we have oil. Hell, even the environmentalists who go to their protest meetings to save the trees usually drive.

Well, I’m tired of ranting. I think I’ll go do what Democrats hate even more than oil. I think I’ll go have a smoke.

Contact former Pasadena Weekly Publisher Jim Laris at jim.laris@mac.com

Stay-Cation Alternative (Cigar Smoke 8-7-08)

Well, I guess you guys have all heard about this new thing they call the stay-cation. You know, like a vacation only you stay at home. With gas prices going through the roof and spending money getting hard to find, I have decided to provide a travel service to you, my columnar friends.

Here’ s what I think you should do to put a little zip back in your zipless life. And all the while keeping your wallet more zipped, too.

I suggest you take a 90-minute, 90-mile cation. No, it doesn’ t quite slip off the tongue like a vacation or even a stay-cation, but I can assure you it works because I just damn did it, baby. Me and my credit card had a ball. Yes, I went alone — you don’ t have to do what the other person wants and, of course, it costs roughly half as much.

I went to the Pechanga Indian Resort and Casino in Temecula. It’ s only 90 miles away and takes 90 minutes to get there. So, assuming gas costs, say, $4.75 a gallon and your miserable car gets 20 miles per gallon, that means you’ ll use four and half gallons of gas, which will run you about $21. So that will be a total of $42 for gas. Big deal. Even you can afford that.

So why did I go to Pechanga? Well, I like the words Pechanga and Temecula. They sound like places in a foreign country and look weird on a map. By the way, have you ever heard of the Pechanga Indians? Who the hell are those guys? Why couldn’ t we have major league Indians out here like the Apache or the Sioux or the Cherokee. The Pechangas? Can you imagine John Wayne being incensed by an Indian named Sitting Pechanga?

I kid the Pechangas. They have a pretty cool resort out there. I went there to see a boxing match and play blackjack and video poker and sit at a table where it said Moo Goo Gai Pan Poker or something. I asked the dealer what it meant and he said, “In Chinese it means an efficient way for us to take your money without you knowing what the rules are and not understanding the language enough to complain.”

I’ m getting ahead of myself again. Actually, the first thing I did when I got there was eat a late lunch/early dinner at their café. I ordered a pulled pork sandwich, this big pile of pulled pork sitting on a giant bun covered in barbecue sauce one inch high. That scared me a little. And then it had lettuce, onion and tomato on the other huge bun. Plus French fries and cole slaw that looked like it had died a slow, gasping mayonnaise death.

Well, I ate that whole damn meal. Let me just say, it did not taste all that great. The only thing I can remember in my life that tasted worse was something I had at a fraternity initiation. Something raw where two guys were holding me down. Hey, it was not good. I kid the pulled pork.

I only mention this culinary experience to help you save money. Yes, the sandwich cost me $9.95, but it stopped me from eating for the rest of the trip — and two more days after I got home. I’ m telling you, you eat that sucker and you and your stomach are taking separate flights, baby.

After the sandwich, I went to see some boxing. I love to go to these semi-hokey boxing matches where you can get ringside seats pretty cheap and have a chance of getting a little fighter blood splashed on you. But say you don’ t like boxing. On Wednesday nights they have a comedy club. Three unknown comics tell three people three bad jokes for the price of three drinks. So that’ s only another nine bucks. And knowing you guys, there’ s not too much leftover.

And maybe you play a little video poker or maybe you go to the lounge and listen to oldies but goodies sung by people who are younger but not so good. And you stay there until your pulled pork pulls off a rebellion in your colon or wherever the hell it has invaded. And the important point is all this enjoyment and all this fun is what? It is cheap.

So you have now had one full day of incredible 90-minute 90-mile Cation Fun. And it’ s only gonna cost you about 60 damn dollars! That’ s pretty dang cheap. Comes out to about five bucks an hour for 12 hours of Pechangian fun.

One disclaimer. You’ re probably tired after all that fun, and you’ ve had, maybe six drinks, and you’ re too damn cheap to stop at a Motel 6, so coming home you might rear-end a Chevy Blazer just north of Lake Elsinore on the 15, and OK, maybe when the cop comes over to see if you are alive you might hurl some pulled pork chunks onto his badge and say, “Sorry, officer. Code 7.” And yes, maybe the cost to fix your car and make bail and have stomach surgery could add up to more than the aforementioned $60.

But you did have fun didn’ t you? Cheap fun. You ingrate.

Contact former Pasadena Weekly Publisher Jim Laris at jim.laris@mac.com

Unfair and Unbalanced (Cigar Smoke 7-24-08)

A couple weeks ago, my fellow ink-stained wretch Larry Wilson tweaked my tweaker when he wrote in his Star-News column that he would “never” watch FOX news. Wow. Even though I know most liberals don’t like Fox (OK, they hate Fox), Larry kind of ratcheted it up a notch when he used the N word — never.

To me that’s pretty strong. Over-the-top. Misguided. And wrong. I guess Larry and the libs don’t want to see any other point of view. They’ve already got all the national mainstream broadcast stations — NBC, ABC and CBS. And they’ve got the cable guys CNN and MSNBC. And they have 99 percent of the major market newspapers in the country — The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, etc. etc. And, of course, they have Time and Newsweek to kind of put that finishing left-leaning flair on their non-assailable viewpoints.

Have you ever noticed that people of the liberal persuasion never (there’s that word again) say anything negative about any other TV station or newspaper or magazine. It’s always FOX. And not only is it FOX, it is only FOX. If, every once in a while, liberals would say, “Did you hear that crock on CNN?” I could maybe give them some deserved slack. But that never happens. Nope. Never happens.

Hell, I don’t think FOX is perfect. (I’m the only one I have ever found who is perfect.) FOX has their share of bias and bullshit. And yes, they lean to the right. And yes, sometimes Bill O’Reilly can be an arrogant jerk. And that Shepard Smith guy makes me puke. If he were any more insufferable he’d have to be speaking directly out of Ted Baxter’s butt.

However, in my humble opinion, they do not spout the Republican agenda, as is so often blindly claimed by the left. As we know, the libsters don’t even watch the damn station. I guess they don’t want pesky old reality to interfere with their opinions.

What about these pesky little non-agenda facts: Bill O’Reilly is a big tree-hugging environmentalist and he’s against the death penalty. And O’Reilly bashes Bush quite often about Iraq, and Sean Hannity and O’Reilly crucify Bush on immigration. There are many, many other points that FOX disagrees with the Republicans on.

But the thing that I really like most about the station is that they allow opinions from the other side all the time. Nightly, in fact. There’s a continual tension of opposing viewpoints on FOX. Really heated arguments between top Democratic people and FOX guys. You can say what you want about FOX, but “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity and Colmes” are on the cutting edge of opinion journalism. They have the guts to say things the mainstream media have ignored for decades. They broke news stories like the Jeremiah Wright story and the Jesse Jackson wanting to cut Obama’s nuts off story.

Liberals appear on FOX all the time. The only thing that is different is that finally some of their liberal opinions are being challenged. And that’s probably why they don’t like FOX. Hell, they’ve had a monopoly on ideas in this country for 30 years or more. Finally, one damn station comes along and has the guts to stand up to them and the libbies start pissing all over themselves.

What the liberals ought to be asking is how did FOX get to be so important? How did they come to dominate cable television news? They have something like four times the viewers of CNN and MSNBC — combined! It’s not even close.

I think the mainstream media missed one of the biggest stories of the last 40 years. And what is that story, Virginia? Basically, they didn’t recognize why Rush Limbaugh became so popular. They were too busy laughing at Al Franken “Big Fat Liar” book titles to see what was really happening.

What was really happening was that a huge part of America was getting fed up with the liberal media and their influence on the country. They just couldn’t take all the sexual craziness and anything-goes abortion policies and the nonsensical immigration ideas, and the downright hostile positions of the left on our military, and the constant tone-deaf roar of the left to eliminate any religious or moral standards. And the deterioration of our schools and the incessant whining of victims and the whole socialism trend. It was just too much.

And many Americans — generally half the country — had nowhere to turn for their information. So what happened? Rush Limbaugh happened. He, almost singlehandedly, turned AM radio into a right-wing medium where people on the right could be heard. Limbaugh saw that there was a big damn hole in information and he filled it.

And FOX saw what Rush had done and more importantly, saw that there was, and is, a huge audience out there for people who do not want to toe the damn party line.

So FOX had the guts to give people another viewpoint, another take on things. And they succeeded and now all the liberals are crying. As Don Henley would say, “Get over it.”

Oh, and also, FOX has all those cool blonde babes, too.

Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Jim (Cigar Smoke 7-16-08)

You feel like a little nostalgia? You don’t look like a little nostalgia. You look meaner and older and nastier and, yes, uglier. You might consider having those warts removed, huh?

I was just sitting in my home office trying to figure out how to take a tax deduction for sitting here and writing — and I’m going to try it this year. Don’t rat me out, OK? I’ll come to your house. Kick a little ratting-out butt if I have to.

I was just thinking back to when I was six years old. Damn dinosaurs everywhere and saber-tooth tigers. It was rough. OK, I’m not quite that old. Yes, I feel that old. And yes I look that old. And yes, I have clothes that look like they’re made out of tyrannosaurus hides. But I am not that old, dammit.

OK, ready for some geezer talk? Well, Sonny and Sonnyette, I was 6 years old back in 1947. No, that’s not a typo. I guess you enjoy laughing at old people. I’d kick your butts if I could find my damn cane. Anyway, I lived out in San Pedro in this pretty cool place. There was a bunch of these three-unit Army barrack kind of places. They’d build two of these units and there would be a big dirt yard in between. Must have been 30 of these damn little complexes all over.

And there was a shitload of kids out there. There were kids everywhere. I mean, there must have been some serious after-war intercourse being enjoyed after kicking some Nazi butt, baby. Kids everywhere. We loved it, too. Back then parents were completely unevolved and tried (and succeeded) to ignore us, and we liked it like that. In the summertime, we would eat breakfast, get our Sky King rings out of the cereal boxes, and head out into life in Rolling Hills in Lomita, near San Pedro, next to heaven.

The first thing we would always do was meet near the top of this hill. We’d all have our wagons. Mine was the coolest, of course. It had a damn steering wheel! Really. My dad built the thing himself. I was the envy of the neighborhood. I used to fly down that damn hill, steering with my steering wheel, and then, just when I was at top speed, I’d jump off into the ice plant. Man, I can still smell that squished ice plant smell mixed with my bloody knees. Ah, it was so good.

And then after the wagon racing, maybe a bunch of us guys, no girls (we weren’t commies), would go down to our secret raft that we had built out of secret crap. It was like a damn Huck Finn raft, and I didn’t even know who Huck was back then. And we’d float around for hours in this muddy pond and steer with big poles and go around old tires and junk cars that were dumped there.

Couldn’t have been better.

And then maybe we’d go over to the cliffs and we’d have our club initiations. And you’d have to jump off, say, a 12-foot cliff, into some sand, and when you were in mid-air, you’d be pelted by dirt clods and apple cores and half-eaten sandwiches, and boogers, and life was good. One time a guy broke his arm jumping off the cliff, but we made him tell his parents he fell down on the playground, and the parents bought it. Parents were pretty dumb back then. Of course, not as dumb as they are now, but pretty dumb.

Then, after fending for ourselves for lunch, we’d maybe play some marbles in between the houses. God, we had some great marble games. Big-ass circles in the dirt, filled with aggies and steelies and puries and other marble names I’ve forgotten. I still remember nailing some shots and just seeing my shooter sting that sucker out of the circle. And then you’d get down on your knee in the middle of the circle and keep shooting until you missed or your shooter went out of the circle. And you’d turn to your buddy and say, “OK, Fuzz Nuts, it’s your turn.” And Fuzz Nuts would say, “Don’t mind if I do, Butt Brains.”

And then we’d have to go home to eat dinner. And we’d escape as soon as we could and meet up by Sandra Holt’s house. I always liked Sandra Holt. I don’t know why. I didn’t even know what sex was back then. And now that I do know what it is, I’m sure Sandra would never have been involved in something so dirty and icky. I think I liked Sandra because she was a good wagon driver and she didn’t have any teeth. I still find these traits attractive in a woman.

And all of us would just be lying down on the grass in the evening waiting for the trucks to come by. We’d just be eating cherries or something and spitting the pits at each other’s crotches, and then the pickle truck would come by. I’m not making this up. We’d all buy a pickle for a nickel. Big juicy dill suckers. Came in a sheet of wax paper. And man, those were sour. Just made you pucker like you meant it, baby. I’m sure that’s why I grew hair on my chest. Hell, I had hair on my teeth.

And then a bit later a tamale truck would come by. (Even then there were illegal aliens.) I usually wouldn’t buy the tamales but I loved the smell. Just didn’t have the money. I would always save my money for the ice cream truck, which came by right after the tamale truck. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I would sneak a ride on the running boards of the tamale truck. I still remember the smell.

And then the ice cream truck would come by. Had this funky little horn thing going for it. And the driver would open up the back door/hatch of the truck and the dry-ice steam would waft out and he’d fan it out a little more so he could see the ice cream bars inside. And we’d all buy our ice cream bars and Eskimo Pies and go flop on the cool grass on a summer evening and life was good.

Very very good.

Contact former Pasadena Weekly Publisher Jim Laris at jim.laris@mac.com.

Tooth Hurty (Cigar Smoke 7-10-08)

I just got back from the dentist. And, you know me, I don’t like to complain. Bitch and moan? Maybe. But complain? Never. Let’s just say I would like to share some things with you.

First, I have had a long and painful history with my teeth. When I was a kid, I had to have all my baby teeth pulled. They just would not fall out on their own. Oh, one time one of my teeth was loose and an uncle came up to me and, after asking me to point out the loose tooth, yanked it right out of my damn youthful head and held it in front of me and said, “Is this the one?” Uncles are kidders.

Then when my permanent teeth came in, there was good news and bad news. The good news: my teeth were incredibly strong. The bad news: they were all over my mouth, running up against each other at right angles, pushing into each other. Kind of looked like a used car lot after a tornado.

So I had to have braces for eight years. Yes, eight years of the orthodontist tightening those damn things so I couldn’t eat for three days, and eight years of those little sucky rubber bands stretching from the top of my mouth to the bottom of my mouth.

And they looked so good, too. I remember in high school going up to a girl with my braces on my teeth and zits on my face and unshaven tufts of hair next to the zits on my face and a few bloody sheared-off ex zit spots and I asked her out and I remember her saying, “Uh, maybe. I didn’t see the weather report this morning. Has hell frozen over yet?”

And when I finally got my braces off, things didn’t get much better. I always had problems with my teeth. A mouthful of cavities and extractions. I’ve had root canals and impacted molars and I’ve had bridges put in and crowns put on and wisdom teeth pulled out and gold fillings put everywhere. So many gold fillings that I count my head as my biggest long-term investment.

Now remember, I’m not complaining. I’m sharing. I remember about 15 years ago I had a memorable dental experience. I had a wisdom tooth taken out. Man, that was an experience. I went to a dentist over in Arcadia and before he started to go to work, I told him I needed extra Novocain. And, like all dentists, he ignored me and started to pull the tooth.

This was a big tooth. And after about a half-hour of trying to yank this sucker, my Novocain started to wear off and then the pain took my breath away, along with 10 years of my life. The dentist said, “I guess you were right about the Novocain.” I said, “I guess I’ll be right when I pull one of your teeth out with a plumber’s wrench.”

OK, that’s all in the past. So about a month ago I notice something outside one of my lower teeth on the right side of my mouth. It’s bulging up, but the tooth isn’t really hurting. So my dentist suggests that I go see a microscopic endontics guy.

So I go to see the guy. And he tells me I need to have the tooth pulled and then I need to have an implant. I inquire as to the approximate cost of this procedure. He tells me the approximate cost. I tell him that’s approximately what I used to pay for a car.

After a fairly long pause, he says, “Well do you want to go ahead with this?” I say, “You know, the tooth doesn’t really hurt me. What would happen if I just didn’t do anything?” He looked at me for a few seconds and said, “My kid couldn’t get into a good college, that’s what would happen.” Those microscopic endontics guys are kidders. No, what he really said was that the tooth was infected and if I ignored it I would lose that tooth and all the other teeth around it would become infected and I would have to gum my words when I ordered in restaurants and if I ordered mashed potatoes I would end up with mathed pimentos.

So I decided to have him pull the tooth. Well, I was in there for over an hour. He tried to pull it. He couldn’t. The tooth was too damn big. So he had to drill and cut the killer tooth into four quarters. Divide and conquer, baby.

So after the tooth was out, he told me I couldn’t have anything hot or hard. And I couldn’t have any coffee and I couldn’t even smoke. I asked him if I could eat meat. He said no. I asked him if I could eat donuts with the left side of my mouth only. He said no. I asked him if I could have sex. He said no.

Finally, I said, “Well, could I at least play the piano?” He said, “OK, you can do that.”
I said, “Great! I never could play it before I had the tooth out.”

Contact former Pasadena Weekly Publisher Jim Laris at jim.laris@mac.com.

Glad to Be Home (Cigar Smoke 7-3-08)

As you know, my dog, Hadley, has some pretty bad back legs. He has real difficulty getting up and cannot climb stairs any more. So while we were at my friend’s ranch in Colorado recently, we’d always be sitting on his deck, which was on the second floor. Vic and I and his two dogs and various cats and critters, would all be up there having some damn fun, and Hadley would be on the ground floor envious of all the noise and action.

So, because he’s a smart dog, he went to the bottom of the stairs, and started to bark. So Vic and I, being not quite as smart, said, “Shut the hell up, you mutt!” Finally, we figured out he wanted us to carry him up the stairs. Pretty cool, huh?

So Vic would grab him under the front legs and chest and I would grab his rear end, and we’d carry him up the stairs. At first, his heart would beat really fast, and he’d be very unsure of the whole thing, and then he gradually got used to it, and relaxed, and told us in doggie yelps to carry him faster. And we did, and he got up there and ran around and smelled a few butts, and life was good. (I don’t get any more heartwarming than that.)

But before you come to the conclusion that Vic is a nice guy, I have to say that I stood at the bottom of the stairs a number of times and barked and he didn’t do shit. He never carried me up. Not once. The bastard.

By the way, remember in my last column when I used the word “dickhead,” as in “Did you bring the steaks, dickhead?” Well, I asked Vic if he used that term with love as kind of a guy insult thing, and he said, “No. I always thought your head looked like a penis.”

Anyway, on the way home, Marge and I were driving through Arizona and we were on Highway 10, pretty much flying, and we saw an Arizona Highway Patrol car stopped by the side of the road, and we went by him, and then a few minutes later he comes up behind us with his lights flashing. I told Marge, “I guess he thinks going 90 in a 75 is speeding.”

We stop. He comes to the window. I roll it down. And he says, “Do you know why I stopped you?” And I said, “Because my head looks like a penis?” He said, “What?” I said, “I don’t know. Why?” He said, “Because you failed to move over to the next lane when you saw a Highway Patrol stopped car at the side of the road.”

I told him I had never heard of that law and that we didn’t have it in California and that I was sorry. I really, truly hadn’t heard of the law, and I was sincerely sorry. He kind of looked at me over his sunglasses and asked to see my driver’s license, registration and my insurance card. Well, I had my license and registration, but my insurance card was outdated — by a month.

He told me my insurance card was not good, and as I was looking for the right one in my special car envelope I pulled out a 50 dollar bill (that I keep for emergencies) and he saw it and said — and if I’m lying I’m buying — “Is that for the nice Arizona Highway Patrolman?”

Marge’s jaw dropped and she looked at me like she would be visiting me in jail, and she said, “Officer, I don’t know this gentleman. I was hitchhiking and he picked me up.” True love.

The nice patrolman only gave me a warning and we made it back to good old Altadena. Glad to be home. Until I opened the accumulated pile of mail. I had a notice from the IRS saying that I owed them $2,300. I called my accountant, Steve Boyer, and asked him if I had any other alternative than paying and he said, “Prison.”

So, the next day, after sleeping in my own bed, the bed with the dried bloodstain on my pillow, the bed where I use my CPAP machine to blast off into dreamland, the bed that is even softer than the Lakers, I get up and go out to the kitchen. Marge is there at the table with her oatmeal and coffee. We read the papers. And then we each take a crossword puzzle, one from the Star-News and one from the LA Times, and we start working them, and then, as always, we switch about halfway through, and we slide the puzzles over to each other.

As we slid the puzzles to each other, we both, at exactly the same time, also slid our pencils over. Did you catch that? We slid our pencils over to each other. Do you see what I’m saying? We were both incredibly moronic at the same exact point in time. I guess we figured the puzzles could only be completed by pencils they already knew. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a new law in Arizona.

Then I went to Brookside Park to get back into my routine, and within three minutes and 100 yards, these things occurred. I swear. On a stack of pancakes. A kid in a school bus said, “Is that your nose or your trunk?” and then ducked down under the window; a guy in a captain’s hat told me his dog more than liked my dog, his dog loved my dog; I overheard a tennis instructor tell his young 8- to 10-year-old students, “Quiet! I want to be able to hear a cricket fart.” I walked by the swimming pool where elderly lanky-ladies in one-piece bathing suits were doing water nymph exercises to the recorded scratchy blaring of “Mellow Yellow.”

Glad to be home.

Contact former Pasadena Weekly Publisher Jim Laris at jim.laris@mac.com.

Reality Checkpoint (Cigar Smoke 6-19-08)

The first day on the road was pretty dang good. Just drove through the desert, had a BLT at Denny’s and got to Phoenix in six hours of fulfilling anticipatory delight. We got settled in our Holiday Inn room (please, stop the envious looks) and we rested for a couple of hours, and then some of the anticipation started to hit the fan.

We were deciding to eat at either Chili’s or The Cracker Barrel. Marge didn’t really have a strong hankering for either one, so I made the decision to go to The Cracker Barrel. Mainly because I like cookie-cutter fake-antique places that are exactly the same either in South Carolina or Albuquerque and serve food you need help with lifting to your mouth.

We’re looking at the menu and Marge says, with clenched little feminine teeth, “They don’t serve wine here.” And I know she wanted to add, “comma, Dumb-ass.” But she didn’t. Because she has two things I sometimes dream about having — class and restraint.

So, throughout the entire meal of consuming dumplings with white gravy that you could mortar a house with, she didn’t speak to me. And I didn’t talk to her either, because I was enjoying my mashed potatoes that were making the table tilt towards Tucson.

We got back to the hotel room. She still wouldn’t talk to me. We went to bed. I cooed, yes cooed, to her, “You want me to go to a liquor store and buy you some Annie Green Springs and pour it on your Cracker Barrel body and then slurp the little puddle out of your navel.” She did not respond.

The next morning I get up at 5:30 because Hadley the Airedale has to take a whiz. I got out of bed, put on my sweat pants, threw on my SC T-shirt, slid into my sandals and took him out to the parking lot to consummate his urinary desires.

Well, Hadley did fine. And then I reach into my sweat pants pocket to get my hotel key to slide into the door to gain entry into such hotel. And, yup, no key.

So I walk around to the front entrance and walk back to our room and knock on the door. No response. I knock again, really loudly. Nothing. I start yelling, “Marge! Marge!” I know she can hear me, but I just hear parts of her answer, like “Maybe next time you’ll pick a place that serves wine.” I yell out, “I’m sorry!” The guy in the room next to us opens his door, and says, “You cheat on her?” I said, “No! I took her to a restaurant that didn’t serve wine.” He said, “Dumb shit.” And he closed the door.

So I walk Hadley back to the front of the hotel and we walk up to the desk clerk, and I say, “Uh, I locked myself out of my room. Could I please have another key?” And she looks at me and my hair is all sleep-matted down to one side with the top of my hair sticking straight up like I’ve just been hit by lightning and there is dry spittle on my chin and crusty eye deposits on the corners of my crusty eyes. And the clerk says, “Can I see some identification?” And, or course, my wallet is in the room, next to my key. You talk about anticipation not meeting expectations, baby. They were strangers.

Eventually I get back into my room (they got tired of me scaring their guests with my crying) and after not speaking with Marge for an hour I dropped her off at her son’s house, and Hadley and I went on our way to Colorado, the land of anticipation.

Then about four hours into the day’s drive, I stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s in Kayenta, Ariz. I got a Big Mac and Cheeseburger for Hadley, and I got a Fish Sandwich for myself, because I get sleepy after eating beef, and I was driving, so I wanted to be responsible and alert and mature. Yes, I am wonderful. By the way, how does McDonald’s find all those perfectly square fish for their sandwiches?

After we finish off the sandwiches, I go back in and order a large soft-serve ice cream cone. When I get it, it is indeed large. Probably six inches of ice cream on this tiny cone base. It was scarier than false anticipation. The ice cream just tottered there waiting for its fate. And then it happens. The entire tower of ice cream breaks off. It does not fall off, or topple over. The ice cream doesn’t separate where it meets the cone. No. It breaks off in the middle of the dinky-ass cone it’s heaped onto!

What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t my fault it fell. My alternative-side-licking was good. No, McDonald’s had engineered a faulty cone! Those commies. Really, the cone was so damn small it couldn’t hold the weight of the ice cream, so it snapped off. That’s just not right.

And here I had a giant glob of ice cream in my hand and I tried to eat as much as I could until my fingers froze and then I got pissed off and just dropped the glob on purpose and let it plop on the pavement. I’m still irritated. I think we have a class action suit.

Anticipation, meet reality. The sound of that plop was just, as my friend Fred Bankston always says, “So life.”